Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Out at the Farm

Sunday morning P. drove us out to his farm. He owns a few plots of land; the two he drove us to were passed on to him by his uncle and he grows potatoes, bananas, and beans there. P. drove us about 30 kilometers outside the city. It was sunny, but too early to be hot. It felt nice to get out of the city.

First we met P.’s pig and chickens and their chicks, then we headed into the potato field where they were growing mostly sweet potatoes (which are white on the inside here).

Afterwards we went to the house and met P.’s dad and some other relatives. P. has 28 brothers and sisters. His father has three wives, not an uncommon occurrence among the tribes in Uganda and elsewhere in East Africa. P. told us his neighbor had five wives and 60 children. A terrifying prospect for me to even consider giving birth to an average of 12 kids, but so it goes.

Next we drove up the road to another plot of land. On the way we stopped for gonja, which is roasted banana and delicious. At the second plot of land, P. grew mostly beans. The area was slightly more populated – you could see kids practicing their corner kicks nearby.

The weird thing when we showed up at the second plot was that we were introduced to P.’s uncle and he was wearing a Bennington shirt, where I got my MFA. How did a Bennington shirt end up in Africa? This reminds me that on the drive we also passed two separate guys on bikes, one in a Tedy Bruschi Patriots jersey and the other in a Troy Brown Patriots jersey. J and N. both had their minds on the draft and took it as a good omen.

Not sure if you can see the Bennington logo in this picture:

P. has banana trees on both plots, though many of them won’t be ready to harvest for a number of years still. However, he did give us an almost ripe bunch to take home. On the drive back we also stopped at an avocado stand and picked up 19 avocados for about five cents each. Here are J and N. with our loot; it’s like they caught a big fish, but really they did no work at all: